Innovative approach towards near-term reduction in Carbon emission from major industrial sources of CO2

*PROJECT SUMMARY*The landmark report, "New climate economy" from World Resource Institute, (September 2014) echoed the authoritative Stern's report of 2006 concluding that there is immense risk of climate change in the near future. To counter this threat it is necessary to reduce the carbon emission from coal-fired plant - the major contributor of CO2, but many governments are hesitant about implementing stricter carbon emission targets as it could increase the cost of energy production by 70-80%. Conventional means of CO2 abatement through carbon capture and storage (CCS) system indeed increases the cost of power generation that much pitting environment against economic development. Although both reports suggest that indirect benefits of better climate outweigh the penalty for higher energy cost, some still view it as a `job killer'.*The proposed research through development of an inexpensive, novel and innovative option for carbon reduction could show that environment and economy does not have to be against each other. This option would bring about major reduction in net carbon emission from coal-fired power plants by large substitution of coal with specially treated carbon-neutral biomass in existing coal-burning plants. While, current practice offers only 5-10% emission reduction, the proposed research aims at increasing this reduction substantially (> 80%) substituting coal with biomass treated innovatively in compressed water or steam to improve biomass to the level of coal. To reduce the carbon emission further in such co-fired power plants we will explore a novel concept of utilizing the very ash the plant produces to capture CO2 thereby giving the plant a negative carbon footprint. By substantially decreasing the cost of CO2 reduction, the new option could remove the barrier against low carbon economy. *We plan to study some unexplored and several less-explored areas of compressed water/steam torrefaction process, and finally synthesize them into a scale up cum reactor design method. In the process it would train 28 students and scholars directly within the university and indirectly about 250 practicing engineers.*An important aspect of our research is development of a broad comprehension of the process culminating into the development of a scale-up method and an innovative reactor design. Using my past experience of development of the first commercialized Canadian technology on CFB boiler I would develop a new Canadian technology on co-firing that could bring additional socio-economic benefits through generation of local employment in biomass (energy crop) production and processing industries, and increase Canada's international competitiveness in green technology.